A/N: Alright, this first chapter is a birthday present to my danna. I'm sorry it's so late, baby! The Document Manager just started working again... D: Happy belated birthday, and I hope you like this! 3 I will treat you smoothies Thursday, I promise!

TO EVERYONE ELSE: I am actually going to try a short chapterfic. This is just to test the waters and to show myself that my consistency has improved over the year, after two longer stories that failed utterly. Now, about the story itself: the amazing nehalenia got me completely hooked on this couple, and it now is my Ishida luvvins ship. (SzayelIshiForteCirucci blob/orgy being "let's torture Quincy-kun~!") And out of the Super Six/nakama, I think Uryuu and Orihime really got the short end of the stick in Hueco Mundo. Inoue emotionally (being captured, decieved, used, abused, and then losing the man she loves just as she realizes she loves him), but Uryuu took the most physical damage. Cirucci cut him up, Szayel crushed his stomack and inflicted various other wounds, he goes up and gets his hand chopped off, and then, the icing on the cake-- the person who taught him to trust again impales him. Yeah. Life sucks for Uryuu. Now, I'm not trying to be anti-Ichigo here, but he always triumphs, and his boo-boos are gone in an instant, leaving no traces, physically and psychologically. He's supposedly mastered his Hollow, but I think his Hollow mastered him-- without the fear of it, he's invincible. So who does Ishida have to go to? Rukia's with Ichigo, Ichigo's off limits, Chad is nowhere to be found, and Orihime is just as broken as he is. Which leaves Renji. So that's the basic premise of this story. It's not set in stone, but it'll probably only be about 5 chapters, vignette-like and around this length. I try to be a very concise writer and not ramble, so my chapters are short...

Enjoy!

Calloused hands cast aside hospital robes like black-winged butterflies shucking away their cocoons and learning to fly. Hot breath tickled the crook of his neck, and the scent of toothpaste mingled with something like soy sauce wafted into his nostrils. The smell was foreign and... exciting? as Renji's mouth came to rest gently on his throat. Uryuu had never figured the Shinigami to be a gentle type, but Renji held him like a delicate doll, capable of breaking at any given moment.

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And he was, perhaps, right in that assumption. Scars crisscrossed and decorated Uryuu's torso in the same way the intricate black lines adorned Renji's. The Shinigami hissed in sympathy-- no kid so young should carry so many tokens of suffering. All across his sides were marks that he now knew to be tokens of Kurotsuchi-taichou, the very man who had saved them from the Octava Espada, who had made his presence known on the Qunicy's body as well, predominantly in the line across his stomach, where the ruptured organ had been patched up. And then there was the mysterious emblem, almost like some sort of brand, seared just below Uryuu's protruding collarbone. Mysterious, alluring, with each of its rays pointing to yet another wound, one of which Renji knew he was the cause of.

Had he been asked two months ago if leaving a scar on a stubborn Quincy weighed on his conscience, he would have laughed the question off with a passive wave of the hand. A pang of regret sliced through him at the sight of the thick line running across the left side of Uryuu's waist; Zabimaru's bite was unmistakable. Perhaps as a condolence of some sort, Renji ran his tongue over the mark, lapping at the raised flesh until the crescendoing moans and whimpers from Uryuu's lips filled his ears. He pushed himself up to examine the rest of the Qunicy's body, pale and covered in a light sheen of sweat. Ishida's glasses reflected no light, revealing two dazed blue eyes staring up at him with a wondrous bundle of shock, pleasure, and obstinacy.

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Uryuu had not been apprehensive or angered when Abarai came to him, face set in an awkward countenance that could have been a scowl had it not been for the concern in his eyes. He'd sat down on Uryuu's bed and simply watched him with a quiet morosity uncharacteristic of his usual loud, cocky attitude. The Quincy knew that he should have been more surprised, more offended than he was when Renji pulled him into a tight hug. He probably should have resisted the pressure of oddly gentle lips caressing his throat instead of tilting his head to the side mutely to give Renji better access. But he was weary to the bone, perhaps even beyond, and as such, saw no immediate need for resistance. Renji's body radiated safety and a desire to protect him, something Uryuu had not received in years since his grandfather's death. His mind made vague passes at excuses, trying to remind him that the man crawling on top of him was a Shinigami, an enemy. Uryuu, for once, ignored his conscience. He felt he could no longer trust it, it or anyone, anything, save for Renji.

He had shut himself away in his room in the Fourth Division, unable to cry out for help for fear that a white-masked beast with blazing, inhuman pupils would be coming for him. All his golden-eyed demons howled like the hounds of hell in his fracturing mind; Kurotsuchi, Szayel Aporro, and now even Kurosaki, his long black blade beating Uryuu into a pathetic, terrified retreat within himself. But Renji had broken into that nightmare world, and though it had been as simple an act as walking into the incarcerated Quincy's room, he might as well have charged in with a battle cry, bankai unleashed and rearing for an attack.

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Renji took hold of Ishida's left wrist gingerly, examining the bandages with lips and tongue. The fabric left a powdery taste in his mouth, as if the Quincy was melting away under the burdens of all his wounds and dissolving under Renji's touch. His heart leapt in anger at the sight of more bandages criscrossing an all too lean stomach; Ichigo had gone berserk, and once again, Uryuu was made to pay the price. The once-overly proud and confident warrior had been reduced to a frail, trembling boy in a hospital bed, the only one he could trust was a man he'd spent a few hours beside in combat. Renji ground his teeth as his anger slowly gave way once more to the burning sympathy, the need to pull the kid close to him until the incessant trembling ceased and Ishida demanded in that uppity way of his that he be released at once.

Cautiously, as if holding fine china, Renji's fingers brushed the metal frames of Uryuu's glasses, catching skin in the process. The Quincy flinched, but did not shy away from the delicate removal of his glasses. When the arms separated at last from the sides of Uryuu's head, Renji almost wished he hadn't laid bare Ishida's sapphire eyes. They were deeply overcast with shadows of agony and desperate loneliness, pleading him to get away and to touch him more all at once. Renji leaned down with deliberate slowness, too fascinated to break eye contact. Ishida's nose came and went like a sparrow flitting by a walker on a morose November afternoon, melding into the taste of snowflakes on a tongue as their lips met.

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Uryuu did not move in response to the sudden crossing of this invisible taboo-tape line, he simply lay there and allowed Abarai's tongue to make tentative acquaintance with his own. He tasted almost the same as the intoxicating musk of his body, though Uryuu was glad to note that the distinct odour of fur did not translate to his mouth. At last, slowly, awkwardly, his lips curled over Renji's, trying to make sense of the slow, warm dance they performed without their feet or a ballroom floor. For the first time since before Las Noches, before Soul Society, before Kurosaki or any other Shinigami, Uryuu felt at peace. Yet... here he was, kissing Abarai Renji, a man who had tried to kill him and then later turned around and fought alongside him and defended him until he was literally incapable of getting up again. He had thought then that Abarai and Kurosaki were two of a kind. Uryuu's last coherent thought was that if Abarai had a Hollow, he would never let it hurt him, no matter what the cost.

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It took Renji several minutes before he realized he was now kissing a sleeping Quincy.